Cheap Linux laptops from Walmart [LWN.net]

Wal-Mart has announced the availability of a $498 laptop running the Linspire distribution. "Wal-Mart and Linspire worked together to offer a laptop that would give customers the best user experience at the lowest price possible. The Balance notebook is the lowest-priced laptop currently on the market to include a complete operating system and office suite."

(Log in to post comments)

Cheap Linux laptops from Walmart

Posted Dec 20, 2004 17:32 UTC (Mon) by chill633 (guest, #16013) [Link]

I like Linspire. I have it installed on two computers used by my high-school aged kids. One machine is a desktop and one a laptop. It is simple, easy and fully functional.

It is also a DOG in startup speed and some application speed. In order to try and please all of the people, all of the time, they have to be able to work with almost anything out of the box. Linspire does a good job with this.

However, 128 Mb of RAM on a 1 GHz Via C3 is just going to turn people off. The C3 can cut it, as long as they aren't doing 3D gaming, but the 128 Mb of RAM will be unusable. I understand they want to get in under the magic $500 price point, but 128 Mb of RAM...

I hope WalMart keeps some 256 or 512 Mb SO-DIMMs in stock.

Cheap Linux laptops from Walmart

Posted Dec 22, 2004 9:35 UTC (Wed) by rqosa (guest, #24136) [Link]

I have a box with only 128 megs (and a 600Mhz VIA Eden CPU), and it's certainly usable, even when running KDE 3.2.3, although it will start swapping if there are lots of tabs in Konqueror open.

Cheap Linux laptops from Walmart

Posted Dec 20, 2004 18:16 UTC (Mon) by rknight (subscriber, #26792) [Link]

Why is it so expensive? Walmart also sells a Windows XP Home Edition System with an AMD 1.1Ghz processor, 40 GB Drive (10 GB larger), the same 128 MB of memory, a DVD-ROM drive (instead of CD-ROM) and wireless networking for a mere $50 more. I'd personally spend the extra $50, dump the Windows and install Debian.

Cheap Linux laptops from Walmart

Posted Dec 20, 2004 21:24 UTC (Mon) by xorbe (subscriber, #3165) [Link]

In fact, *no* networking or modem is listed... yet one gets a limited free CNR (click'n'run) online account...

Really, spend $200 more and get a decently featured Celeron machine with DVD/CDRW and some ram and 100mbit network. Also a Celeron will pound a 1GHz C3 into the ground (I have both with 512MB ram, I know!)

Cheap Linux laptops from Walmart

Posted Dec 22, 2004 17:44 UTC (Wed) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link]

Some background and speculation. Wal-Mart used to carry a $199 PC which came with Linspire (then called Lindows). The model got dropped. (Which is a shame, because they made great, reliable, inexpensive thin clients when loaded with my custom kickstart install of Fedora.) The new models were more expensive. They just recently reintroduced a $199 model again running Xandros' free edition. I suspect that Linspire started charging some per copy fee for Lindows/Linspire. I have no problem with that, but I suspect that we will be seeing a cheaper model of this laptop for less money, running Xandros, or some other distro. They are, after all, Wal-Mart, and if they are paying a fee and can cut it out of the equation, they will.

Cheap Linux laptops from Walmart

Posted Dec 22, 2004 10:59 UTC (Wed) by NESAC (guest, #3813) [Link]

Let's keep this in perspective. It's not surprising that a low-end laptop from Walmart is not very appealing to the LWN audience. But it is good to see that Walmart thinks it is worth its while to carry computers loaded with Linux. Whatever its faults, you have to admit that Walmart knows how to make money in retail, so this is a sign that there is money to be made selling Linux systems to Joe Consumer. That's a Good Thing.